I have sat in front of many boards but support even more leaders behind the scenes in preparation for their board meetings. I think this is an important topic to share from our seat here at AK Ops as we’re supporting 30-40 sales organizations any given month.
Each month, I ask the women on my team to provide an impact report to each client they’re responsible for. These board-level details are essential and include data that every POC of ours should know like the back of their hand. Consistently providing these impact reports not only supports our POC with the acumen of the GTM engine we’re providing them with our partnership, but also surfaces impressive sales metrics that inform the health of the sales organization as a whole.
Funnel Performance At A Glance (Enabled vs Self-Sourced)
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- Prospected
- New Meetings Booked
- Qualified Pipeline Generated
- Late Stage Pipeline
- Wins
Enabled funnel is typically generated by marketing or business development channels, while Self-Sourced is strictly generated by the reps. While Self-Sourced is typically less volume, it is almost always Target Accounts, industry referrals, or Enterprise Opportunities.
Example analysis below:
If you’re a lean team extremely dependent on events, partnerships, and marketing , this helps illustrate the need for these channels to continue and directs budget decisions. If you’re considering adding more sales reps, this helps you identify how your current self-sourced deals are closing and/or what kind of enabled deal volume you need to justify the new hire.
Understand the DNA of the Personas in Your Pipeline
Your board will appreciate that you not only have the total addressable market in mind in your data, they’ll love to hear you think of your strategy by personas based on how they convert into pipeline. This allows you to communicate how the market is responding to the company and its mission through the vehicle of sales and marketing – and ultimately revenue.
Pipeline to Revenue Persona Data
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- Time to Meeting Booked
- Touches to Meeting Booked
- Time in Pipeline
- Win Rate in Pipeline
- Known Delays/Bottlenecks/Opportunities
Example analysis below:
Persona 1: Sales Leaders exhibit quicker conversions and higher win rates, though their deal sizes are smaller. With much of the Total Addressable Market (TAM) already utilized, these leaders are a go-to for swiftly closing gaps. Testing new marketing roles is an upcoming opportunity this quarter - we'd like to determine if Sales Managers convert the same in our campaigns so this persona can expand, but stay within our TAM.
Persona 2: Marketing leaders, characterized by high engagement yet slow conversion rates, require more nurturing before transitioning to sales, typical of marketing buyers. Despite a larger contact base for this persona, the slower conversion velocity prompts a balanced prospecting strategy with Sales Personas, who typically close faster, to maintain overall sales momentum. Notably, marketing personas' deals are 32% more valuable, justifying the extended sales cycle, which highlights the primary opportunity this quarter: shortening these cycles.
Measure Revenue Generating Activities
Typically board members do not care to go into the top performing content, but I do think several of our boards have appreciated understanding meeting sources (how are the sales meetings booked).
So many of our clients have been dependent on events - but in this case, only 3 meetings are actually executed at the event. Event execution takes diligent follow up to capitalize on the investments like automated sequences, rep’s manual effort or other nurture campaigns to actually create the deal with legs. While I love and appreciate events, the conversions rarely happen at the event and we need to make sure we’re tracking all the efforts when committing to the event’s game plan.
We talk a lot about Pipeline Attribution models - read this post on LinkedIn from Anna Mellas to dive into the deep :) but this is how we’d think about an event attribution when determining investment. If you’re a marketing leader asking to attend a $100K event - this is the model your board is looking for.
Fastest way to build the confidence of your board?
Obsess over the TAM DNA and GTM plays. It can save your quarter. Literally. We need to get our sales organizations to pragmatic execution - if we’re behind on a goal with only 40 days left in the quarter, what plays should we throw?
Real story - I was running point on sales enablement and we were $100K behind goal with only two Enterprise deals in Commit. Both were whales and unlikely to close in the quarter. So I ran two plays - one for existing pipeline and one for new.
Play #1:-
- Reviewed my # of Touches to Close report for Enterprise Accounts. After all, nothing is worse than a desperate sales rep so I needed to know what deals were in the appropriate lifecycle for this strategy. I learned that on average it takes 42 exchanges with the main POC for our reps to win a deal.
- Then I ran that same number across the active pipeline and found 4 deals were nearing that sweet spot (30-40 touches).
- The VP of Sales doubled down on only the 4 deals for the remainder of the quarter in hopes his executive involvement would encourage a smooth close in the quarter.
- They won a paid pilot for $9K and an Enterprise win for $80K.
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- I reviewed the cycle times of the mid-market deals and identified a specific title and industry that would be the quickest to not only book the meeting but also close within the 40 days.
- This includes 2 segments – new prospects and closed lost retry contacts that have not been contacted in 90+ days.
- I sent a combination of marketing and sales emails to this list of ~200 people and booked 3 meetings after the first email of the sales sequence.
- These extra 3 meetings produced one win of $22K within 30 days.
As a sales leader, could you imagine having someone aid you with plays like that?
Sales is changing. Your board deck should too.
By dialing in your go-to-market with persona pipeline data, we’re able to execute a powerful Revenue Generating Engine that every board dreams of. These insights provide the agility to execute the quarter with confidence and focus on the right targets at the right time. And the best part? This isn't a program that takes months to determine ROI.
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